YOUNTVILLE — Twelve-year-old Lucy Harrington had a concern — why did her dad keep a straight face at her baseball games? Did her dad care, she wondered?

So Lucy and fellow sixth-grader at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School in St. Helena, Ella Hougie, measured the blood pressure and heart rates of a dozen moms and dads watching Little League games at Crane Park in St. Helena.

The conclusion? Dads tended to have higher systolic blood pressures and heart rates than the moms.

“Now we know ... dads do care. They’re just trying to hide it,” Lucy said, after she and Ella presented their poster “Blood Pressure @ the Ballpark” at the fifth annual Napa County Science Fair at the Napa Valley Museum. “I found the men do care about whether their kid strikes out or doesn’t,” added Lucy at the museum at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville.

Lucy and Ella were among the 80 or so fifth- and sixth-graders from throughout Napa County who presented scientific projects Saturday. They took second place.

In all, about 80 projects were submitted from 26 schools countywide, said Seana Wagner, public information officer for the Napa County Office of Education, the event coordinator.

All participants received a medal and a certificate from Barbara Nemko, the agency’s superintendent. The seven students who took first-place honors, including five from Blue Oak School, also received iPad mini tablets, according to the education office.

Other projects included taking a look at volcanoes, at how blood splatters, testing paper airplanes, and figuring out the best way to shoot a basketball.

After testing his family and friends, Jack Keeley, a fifth-grader at Browns Valley Elementary School, concluded the chin shot is the most accurate technique.

Nicole Forestier, a fifth-grader at Howell Mountain Elementary, tested food colors, comparing them with colored marking pens.

Ben Vichi, a sixth-grader at River Middle School, found that corn spoons degraded the most;  Hibah Shafi, a sixth-grader from American Canyon who attends River Middle School, found homemade hamburgers spoiled the most after a few days while McDonald’s patties remained perfectly fine, thanks to preservatives.

Another fifth-grader, Vivian Kammerer, a student at Alta Heights Elementary School, surveyed 400 tombs at Tulocay Cemetery with her dad to find out that Napans live about 12 years longer on average than other Americans.

Graham Durfee, 10, a West Park School fifth-grader who also took second place, tested the short-term memory of his schoolmates, to find out if boys did better than girls. While the boys edged out the girls, he decided to call it a “tie.”

“You don’t want to start a war, right?” said Wasfa Jahangiri of American Canyon, laughing.

Napa Valley Unified School District Superintendent Patrick Sweeney was impressed with what he saw. “They’re all different,” he said.

So was Denny Mosher, a retired engineer who was among the volunteer jurors.

“I’m very impressed with the ideas these kids have come up with,” he said after speaking with Alicia Rosales, a sixth-grader at Pope Valley Elementary, who worked on her project with her grandfather, Daniel, a high school science teacher.

“They’re getting into the scientific process and thinking, and doing projects themselves,” he said, referring to the students. “(The project)  doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to follow the process and show that they’re thinking, that they’re engaged in science.”